Ex-con broke into cars in Sutton and used stolen bank cards

Court Reporter

A Sutton man stole bank cards from parked cars and used them in order to survive after he was released from prison twice in the last six months, a court heard.

Carl Limb took a £350 hoverboard, and a bank card, from an Audi on Chapel Street, Sutton, and used to card buy £83 of goods from a local mini market, on July 15.

The owner discovered the theft when she found her handbag strewn across the road, said prosecutor Neil Hollett.

And on November 3, Limb broke into a Nissan Navarro, also parked in Sutton, and stole a Vanquis credit card, but it was cancelled before he could buy £29 of tobacco and scratch cards from the Co-Op in Huthwaite.

Police traced him through CCTV cameras in the stores, said Mr Hollett, adding that Limb had “a number of offences on record including relatively recent like offences.”

Limb, 34, of Jephson Street, admitted two counts of theft, and two counts of fraud, when he appeared at Mansfield Magistrates Court, via video link from Nottingham HMP, after initially denying the charges on December 7.

Amy Godson, mitigating, said Limb had just been released from prison on both occasions, and “simply reverted back to things he had done before.”

“He was homeless. He simply committed these offences for get by,” she said.

She said he had been a “heavy drug user” who was now taking methadone, noting a gap in his offending between 2008 and 2014.

But his father died in 2014, Ms Godson said, and he “resorted back to drug use.”

“Since then, things have spiralled out of control.”

For the July offences Limb was given 12 weeks in prison and a further six weeks were added for the November offences.

He was also given 14 days for a breach of his post sentence supervision, which will run concurrently.

He was ordered to pay £350 compensation to the owner of the hoverboard.

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